Bourke (Bunacrower)
Family title
Earl of Mayo
Estate(s)
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Bourke (Bunacrower) | The Earls of Mayo held an estate in the parishes of Kilmainemore and Kilcommon, barony of Kilmaine, county Mayo. The Bourkes were established at Moneycrower or Bunacrower, parish of Kilmainemore from the 16th century. John Bourke was the first to live at Kill, county Kildare in the mid 17th century. In 1781 another John Bourke was created Viscount Mayo of Moneycrower and in 1785 Earl of Mayo. One of his son's Joseph Deane Bourke was the Protestant Archbishop of Tuam and 3rd Earl. The Bourkes were absentee landlords and were prominent as statesmen and at the Royal Court in the 19th century. The 6th Earl served as Chief Secretary in Ireland on a number of occasions in the 1850s and 1860s and was assassinated in India in 1872. In 1876 the Earl of Mayo owned 559 acres in county Mayo, 4915 acres in county Kildare and 2360 acres in county Meath. The county Mayo estate was vested in the Congested Districts' Board on 4 Mar 1915. The seat of the Earls of Mayo was Palmerstown House, Naas, county Kildare. |
| Courtney | The Courtney family were settled in the Ballinrobe area in the 18th century and held lands from estates such as that of the Earl of Mayo, in the parishes of Ballinrobe, Kilcommon and Shrule, barony of Kilmaine, county Mayo. |
| Bourke (Oory) | A branch of the Bourkes of Moneycrower or Bunacrower, later Earls of Mayo, settled at Oory [also spelt Urey/Urrey], parish of Tagheen, barony of Clanmorris, county Mayo in the 17th century. They intermarried with other Bourke families and with the Fitzgeralds of Turlough, Kellys of Kelly's Grove and Fiddane and with the Shees of Castlebar. Burke's ''Landed Gentry'' records four generations of Bourkes residing at Oory until the estate was sold in the mid 18th century. Later generations of the family settled in Jamaica and England. One descendant, Eliza Jane Dennis of Jamaica, married James Hewitt Massy Dawson in 1800. By the time of the first Ordnance Survey the Brownes of Brownhall were in possession of Oory and the Nettervilles held Coarsefield, which was probably part of Oory under the Bourkes. One branch of the family lived at Curry in the parish of Mayo in the late 18th century and intermarried with the Brownes of the Neale. Two daughters and co-heiresses married Patrick Kirwan of Claremount and Charles McManus of Barley Hill and appear to have shared the townland of Curry - Curry (McManus) and Curry (Kirwan). |